André Martin’s writings

The reading of writtings of André Martin was for me an event of utmost importance. I spent long hours underlining everything that seemed important to me. I then transcribed all those passages to make it easier to find later in my work. I have the intention to write a text on the role of Martin in the incredible explosion of animation (which included the invention of the term “animation cinema») in the fifties and the sixties. By his writings and his actions, he is at the source of everything that happened thereafter (creation of animation festivals, ASIFA etc.).. But it is far from certain that his thinking has been well understood, nor at the time nor now. I think the main thrust of this text will be analyzing the yawning gap between the text-Manifesto of 1952 «Cartoons and gravity”; and the totally disillusioned interview of 1968 that Martin and Boschet had granted at “Image and sound” in 1967. In between these two milestones, there is a lot to help understand what happened in animation cinema from that date until today.

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